


Cages

by Karios



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Chocolate Box Exchange, Episode Related, F/M, Missing Scene, This got away from me, s03e16 Red Queen, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: Filling in the gaps in Red Queen with a lot more Hightower.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/gifts).



> 1\. There's a lot of borrowed dialogue from the episode. Hope it's not annoying.
> 
> 2\. I named Hightower's sister Charlotte, if she has a canonical name, please feel to correct me in the comments.
> 
> 3\. I love Hightower so much. She needs more fic.
> 
> 4\. Enjoy Ruuger!

“You think it's true?” Madeleine sputtered incredulously. If even free-thinking, outside-the-box Patrick Jane was convinced of her guilt, what hope would she have with the department? “You think it's true that I killed Johnson and Monterro?”

“Let's just say I'm open-minded. Any minute now the lab is going to identify your prints at the Monterro crime scene.” Jane's voice still hadn't changed from its deadly calm—and that phrase never felt so apt—tone, but it was no longer quite as unnerving because she knew what to say for the first time in the conversation.

She wagged a finger at him the way she did when she caught Mimi or Will in a lie. “I have never been to that museum.”

“Well then, you're either being framed, or you're a lunatic killer.” His laserlike assessment made Madeleine pause and her hand dropped to her side. “In either case, you should phone your family 'cause my guess is the pot roast is gonna be served a little late this evening.”

The humor clinched it. Patrick definitely wasn't going to shoot her, or at least he wasn't hoping to, but that didn't mean she wanted a gun in her face. “If you don't point that shotgun away from me, I swear I will use it to beat you like a rented mule.”

“Spoken like a true lunatic killer. You're not giving me much to work with here.”

“I mean it,” Madeleine replied, marvelling for a second at how he could be desperate and still funny at the same time, until he cocked the gun and stepped forward. Alright, she mentally corrected, maybe he couldn't be talked down. She needed a plan and needed it quick.

“So do I.” He panted, whatever he was struggling with written all over his features. “Did you kill those men? I have to know.”

“Why, Jane? If you think I'm guilty, turn me over to LaRoche. I'll go.” While she didn't love her chances with LaRoche, it was better than staring down the barrel of a shotgun held by an already unstable man.

“No,” he refused and finally made some sense out of this mess. ”If you killed Todd Johnson, then you're mine, and you're going to lead me straight to Red John.”

“Red John?” asked Madeleine, and the surprise is genuine. “What does this have to do with-”

“Todd Johnson was taken out because he knew Red John's secrets, as if you didn't know that. And if you didn't know it,” he added, working it out aloud for her benefit, “the real insider murdered Monterro to frame you which brings us the full circle. Are you or are you not a killer?”

“You know what I am, Jane? I'm a single mom with two innocent children at home. There's nothing in the world I would do to compromise their safety or their future.” Madeleine raised her hands. “Please, Jane,” she whispered, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible. It had to have worked because Jane lowered the gun. Not by much, but enough to give her an opening, and, in one smooth move, she disarmed him.

Jane blinked at her. Madeleine reflected it was the closest he’d ever seemed to stunned.

“So,” she aimed the gun at his chest as she spoke, “still think I'm a killer?”

“No,” he glanced away. “Shame really.”

“Only you could say that with a gun to your-” she started, almost missing his quiet interruption.

“Means we need a new plan.”

“Plan?” she asked. “I don't follow.”

Jane muttered, “obviously. Had you been a killer then you would've led me to Red John, and then you’d have been on your own. Since you're not, we need a plan to get you out of this.”

“I'm guessing you have a suggestion?” She skipped over why Patrick was helping her. If, no, when it worked, she could worry about the whys of all of this.

“Depends.” He sat up, steepling his fingers together, and ducked his chin. It couldn't have been easier to know he was sorting through possibilities if little cartoony thought bubbles appeared above his head.

“On?” she prompted, when the silence stretched on a little too long.

His eyes fluttered open. “How you feel about small spaces.”

“Don't get much smaller than jail cells.”

Jane glanced at her sideways, then in a seeming change of subject asked, “what's going on out there, once you've become suspect number one?” When she didn't immediately answer, he added, “I needed to figure out how long we have before they storm the castle.”

Madeleine nodded. “Well, they'll try to get a hold of me for a little while. That's probably nearly about up. From there, they'll search my office and my home,” she paused just long enough for a shudder of revulsion, “looking for evidence to hang their suspicion on.”

“Which they'll find. This frame-up isn't sloppy,” confirmed Jane.

“From there,” she continued, “they'll set up the BOLO, and then realize where I am, probably.”

Jane’s next repose was short, before he leapt to his feet. “Can’t risk leaving now then, we’ll have to wait for them to come to us.” He moved away and fetched a roll of duct tape from somewhere among the junk.

“Then what?” she asked.

“We stage a hostage situation, to get us temporarily alone in the parking garage. From there, I stash you in a trunk, and you have to trust me to do my part.”

“Why on Earth would I do that?”

“I'm trusting you not to shoot me, seems like a fair trade.” He shrugged. “You said you’d do anything to get back to your kids. If you have a better plan, I'm open to suggestions.”

The way he said it, she knew, was trust in and of itself. Since when did Patrick Jane take advice? “How can you be sure someone won't call our bluff?”

“What? Like you’ve never wanted to shoot me?”

The look she’d given him had to be withering because he shrank under her gaze. “I can't,” admitted Patrick, “hence the trust.”

“Alright, alright, I'm in.”

They didn't speak again after that. Madeleine wasn't sure why he’d clammed up and started rummaging through the room, but she suspected it had to do with whatever came after she ended up in the trunk.

When Lisbon called, “Jane, you in there?” they had just arranged themselves. Patrick in front, hands up, her in the rear. Gun aimed between them. A firearm hadn't felt this uncomfortable in her hands since the early days of training.

“Yeah. I’m coming out. You’ll have to stand back and if you're bearing firearms, please lower them. Please.”

 _Showtime_ , she thought.

At first, it was frighteningly easy. Her role was reactive. Make it personal, make it convincing. “Stand back or he dies. If you don't let us pass, you can try to stop me, but just know my finger will reflexive pull this trigger if I stumble or if I fall.” The only true words she spoke were to Theresa: “There's nothing you could have done to prevent this.”

Cho, and the women with the phone, tested her. A few standard phrases, she barely heard herself as she threatened the life of the only man willing to save hers. In her mind, her prayers were louder than her words. _I won't have to shoot him. Dear God, let us get through this building._

Mercifully, they did complete phase one. Madeleine lowered the gun as they crouched between two cars.

She was in the middle of a prayer of thanks, when Jane ordered her into the trunk of LaRoche’s car.

“It won't work. I'll be caught in minutes.”

“It will work.”

“This is crazy.” Despite Madeleine’s vocal reluctance, her body closed the remaining distance between her and the car.

“Not at all,” insisted Jane. “Once they set the perimeter you will be like a rabbit in a trap. They will search every vehicle leaving except the man that is in charge, so get in.”

She agreed, partly because it was a good point and because there was no time to think of anything better. _Trust._ “Okay. How long do I have to be in here?”

“Until you hear this.” He demonstrated some knock on the trunk door.

“Okay.”

“Turn your cell phone off so they can't trace it. Here, take mine.”

He handed over his phone. “Okay.”

“Whisper.”

“Okay,” Madeleine repeated for a third time because she knew if she tried to say anything else, she would talk herself out of this as easily as she’d talked herself in.

And then Patrick closed her in. She turned off, and for good measure, disassembled her phone. Then Madeleine settled in and prayed. _Our Father, who is in Heaven..._ For courage, for clarity, for strength.

Madeleine thought she was caught for sure as Lisbon and LaRoche climbed into the car. For a moment, her heart hammered and it was a struggle to maintain even breathing. Then, in a handful of seconds and an eternity later, the sirens flicked on and she could breathe again. If there was a chase, then whatever diversion Jane had setup was working.

She couldn't make out what they were saying over the sirens blaring but she knew it was about her. Theresa was disappointed, and it should have nagged her, but by then her list of regrets was so long that it barely even registered.

When LaRoche next parked, these two dodged bullets emboldened her enough to call her sister. Even if it did get her caught, she needed to get Mimi and Will to safety.

She dialed the numbers and each ring seemed to echo as loud as the sirens had, she felt certain she’d be caught but the only click she heard was the call connecting.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Maddie, what's going on?” Charlotte sounded terrified. “You’re all over the news, they're saying you killed a man.”

“No time to explain now,” she answered, cutting her off. That meant she hoped there would be plenty of time to explain later, but she refused to dwell on that. “I need you to pick up Mimi and Will. Get clothes, cash, anything we’d need for a week, packed away and take them out of town.”

There was a pause and some shuffling. She can hear drawers banging open.

“Consider it done.”

“Don't call anyone else or tell anyone where you're going, and if the police or anyone from the CBI come snooping around you don't know anything.”

“Okay.”

This last bit was so much harder. “I'll meet you as soon as I can, if I can.” Lottie’s answering gasp made her throat thick.”You take care of those kids. I love you. I gotta go.” Madeleine disconnected abruptly. She jammed her lower lip between her teeth to keep from getting too emotional.

They’d prepared for this moment and she knew Charlotte would do right by her kids. She was a good aunt and she’d make a good mother if it came to that.

 _It won't come to that. Don't think like that_.

Her pep talk didn’t steady her frayed nerves or keep her mind from wandering for long. She had seen Jane and his crazy plans perform some true miracles-on-Earth, but that didn't make her feel any less helpless. It did even less to stem the flow of regrets.

She wished she'd given Mimi permission for that sleepover after all. She wished she hadn't gotten in a snit over Will's messy room last weekend. A fresh pang of guilt also washed over her about the affair, though she noted bitterly that late night calls to a lover had taught her how to whisper on a phone.

She tried to plan too. Not the big logistical stuff, but the personal details that would end up being hers and hers alone. At the top of her list? Explaining to Will and Mimi why she'd uprooted them again. _I'm sorry babies_ , she mentally rehearsed, _but there's some stuff Momma has to take care of. We're together and I love you and that's never gonna change_. She could see their disappointed faces to her mind's eye, and another wave of sadness threatened to overtake her, but it never got a chance before a car door opened.

Madeleine felt like she was starring in one of those cartoons where an army of little people shuffling about represented your mental state. Only her little people would be frozen, stock still, eyes focused at nothing. She drew in a breath and waited. The engine started, then the first turn, then a block. After one more she felt it was safe to breathe again. Each time the car stopped meant a fresh spike in panic, so much so that it took several minutes to appraise the difference when the car stopped for good.

She punched ‘ignore’ on several incoming calls for the next twenty minutes before she was satisfied that LaRoche wasn't coming back. She collected Jane’s phone and pulled up voice mail. Sandwiched between a pair of messages from an irritated Lisbon asking Jane to pick up, was a call from Lottie: "I've got the kids. We're at the cabin. Please call me, I'm scared."

She watched several minutes tick forward slowly, before she called Charlotte back. Madeleine was willing to risk a longer call so long as she filled in the blanks as best as she could. “I'm being framed...we don't know who yet...I haven't hurt anyone...no one will believe...I’ll meet you and the kids soon, she promised, more certain of it now than before.

Too drained to do much more and painfully aware the situation was already out of her hands, she settled in to wait, and ignore more calls. _Damn Patrick Jane’s popularity._

Despite pleading for it, the knock was startling when it came. She was still shocked to see Patrick’s face as she shoved open the trunk lid.

When he eventually asked about her arrangements, it also surprised her that his approval was comforting.

A thought she’d dismissed earlier resurfaced, “You risked a lot for me.”

“Well not for you entirely,” he deflected.

“I understand,” she responded not only to his deflection. “Still, thank you for getting me out of that building and back to my family.”

“And thank you for not shooting me in the face,” returned Jane easily.

She found, just a little too late, that she liked the way they meshed. It was why, at least in part, she’d let him ramble on about how good Red John is and how careful she needed to be, as though today hadn't been a painful lesson of its own.

She did stop him though when he lied to her: “You’re better off alone.”

Madeleine pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Nobody is better off alone,” she corrected. He had cemented that much for her again today. She only hoped someone did the same for Patrick, and soon.

She would miss that pain in the ass.


End file.
